Braid
by WhiteSaille
Summary: In the tapestry of fate, some threads are bound to intersect. We all know the tale of the Lone Wanderer; these are the strands interwoven with her unique destiny.
1. Prologue

Finally... I can't believe I've been reading other people's stories on this site for over a year without ever posting one of my own! I've written a chapter or two on various stories for a few other fandoms, but I always worry that I might take too long between updates, so I've never published them. This tale, though, grabbed ahold of my imagination and would not let go.

I promise I'll try very hard to update as soon as possible, but I can't turn out chapters as quickly as some people on here -- you know who you are. ;) I'm trying for a new chapter every ten days or so... I already have detailed outlines written for the first fifteen chapters. Yeah, this is gonna be a long one.

And just to clarify, the author's note for each chapter will be _after _the chapter itself, so as not to distract from the story or spoil anything. Unless I have something very important to say, in which case it'll be mentioned at the top. Also, beginning with chapter 1, _text in italics_ is for flashbacks or dreams, which is important to remember because I'll be using them quite a bit.

If you like it, please R & R, it keeps me inspired!

* * *

Prologue

--

_ She stood tall and majestic. She radiated fury. She shouted: "Who has disturbed me?" But then, anger expelled,  
she felt the sadness beneath; she let her breath fall softly, like a sigh, like ashes floating gently on the wind._

_ She couldn't understand why he chose to flirt so closely with the death of the world._

--

But the great men of the past not only flirted with their destruction, they embraced it, caressed it like a lover right up until the day their folly wiped them from the earth. We have paid the price for their mistake: the tattered remnants of humanity, struggling for survival amid the detritus of a golden age that will never come again.

It is against this backdrop of utter desolation that my tale unfolds. A wise man once told me that our destiny is like a tangible thing, a single thread among many in the tapestry that makes up our world. Our own strands may touch others, run parallel for a time, perhaps intersect before parting ways – and rarely, the weave of fate is tighter still, binding destinies together even more closely than the threads in a woven cloth.

I suppose you could call it a braid.

--

* * *

_A/N: The italicized quote here is from the game Braid... I don't want to say any more for fear of spoiling a great game for anyone who hasn't played it through._


	2. Stranger in Paradise

Chapter 1: Stranger in Paradise

--

"Take my hand  
I'm a stranger in paradise  
All lost in a wonderland  
A stranger in paradise  
If I stand starry-eyed  
That's the danger in paradise..."

-- The Ink Spots, "Stranger in Paradise"

--

_Mouse stumbled through the clinic door and out into the winter night, not daring a backward glance. She fought to keep her breathing under control, feeling her heart thumping against her ribcage even as she forced her steps into a leisurely pace. She could not afford to draw attention to herself._

_Mostly she worried about running into someone else on her path – if they were to notice that the blinking red light on her collar had gone ominously dark, it was all over. If she were caught, the girl knew she'd be _lucky_ to get a month in the Box. More likely, she'd end up in one of the cages hanging from the ancient lights above, her slow death a warning to anyone else foolish enough to attempt escape, and those who had helped her would suffer the same fate._

_--_

_"You sure you can do this, kid?" Pronto asked, his forehead creased; though whether with worry for her, or at the difficulty of deactivating the collar, Mouse couldn't tell._

_"Don't worry, I remember everything you told me. The drainage tunnel is about twenty feet long--"_

_"No, kid, I know you know how to get out. If anyone can pull this off, it's you." He didn't pause in his work, but he caught the tiny smile on the girl's face at that. "I meant, are you sure you can make it out there in the Wasteland?"_

_Her eyes flickered to his face as she took a deep breath before answering. "Honestly? I don't know. But I promise I'll try my hardest. It's the least I can do when both of you are risking so much to help me."_

_There was a sudden beep followed immediately by a click, and Pronto leaned back, a satisfied smile on his face. "All done. You had better get moving, though. Sooner or later someone will notice your collar isn't online."_

_Mouse stood from the exam table where she had been sitting and turned to the other person in the room, the raven-haired woman who'd been silent all this time – Irina, the compound's doctor, who had become like a mother to the girl._

_"I guess this is goodbye," Mouse said softly as student and mentor shared a tight hug._

_Irina finally stepped back, smiling at the teen with pride even as her blue eyes were clouded with sorrow. "I stashed a bag in the bathroom for you earlier. It's on your left as you go in the door; don't forget." One hand reached out, lifting Mouse's long blond braid from where it rested on her shoulder and smoothing it into its proper place down her back._

_"Thank you," the girl said, "for everything. I'll never forget you."_

_"I hate to cut this short, but you really need to get moving," Pronto said, putting a hand on Mouse's shoulder to steer her toward the door._

_Before he could react, Mouse had wrapped her arms around him, and though he stiffened in surprise, he did not pull away. "I won't forget you, either," Mouse whispered, her head resting on his chest._

_"I know," Pronto replied, and after a moment's hesitation awkwardly brought his arms up to return the hug._

_--_

_And with that, Mouse had left behind the only two people she could remember trusting in all her fifteen years. Sink or swim, she was on her own now, and the thought terrified her as she made her way to the bathrooms at the far end of the compound._

_Mouse's heart skipped a beat when she saw the silhouette of a man sitting on a bench beside the path, his features thrown into shadow by the dancing light of an oil-drum fire. She nearly stopped walking when she drew close enough to recognize the long mustache. It was Forty, probably her least favorite person in all of Paradise Falls – and that was saying something, considering the competition._

_Somehow the girl managed to force her feet to move forward, afraid that halting now would only draw more attention to herself. She looked straight ahead, knowing that if she made eye contact, the slaver would most likely stop her, and then it would be all over._

_Mouse was almost close enough now that he could reach out and grab her if he chose, and it took every ounce of her self-control to keep from visibly trembling. As she passed by, though, she heard soft snoring, and without thinking she risked a glance. Forty was sound asleep, still clutching a half-empty beer bottle tightly in his hand._

_A profound sense of relief came over the teen as she walked the last fifty yards to the bathroom door. Once inside, she quickly retrieved the small backpack Irina had left for her before continuing into the back room._

_The bathrooms were nearly pitch black this late at night, lit only by the meager green glow from the strange mushrooms that thrived on the town's debris. Mouse let the sound of running water guide her toward the drainage pipe, feeling along the floor until her fingers finally closed over the edge of a round metal grate. After a few moments of struggling with the surprisingly heavy cover, she managed to move it to the side and peered down into the blackness of the pipe._

_She could see nothing of what awaited her; the girl knew she would have to trust in Irina's plan and simply descend into the unknown. Mouse threw the pack down into the pipe, hesitating only a moment before lowering herself after it, into the smothering darkness._

_--_

_The drainage pipe was narrow enough that Mouse could only move in an awkward crawl, pushing off with her arms just enough for her toes to reach forward a precious few inches, then repeating the cycle. Her progress was so painfully slow that she began to wonder if she would ever make it out of the pipe, or if the slavers would already be waiting for her when she did._

_After what seemed like an eternity, Mouse felt a cool breeze brush against her feet, and she quickened her pace as much as the cramped confines of the pipe would allow. At last her toes reached out to find open air instead of damp metal, and the girl carefully wriggled backwards, lowering herself down until her feet touched the rocky earth below. She looked around quickly and was relieved to find that she was utterly alone, though still perilously close to one of the outer barricades surrounding Paradise Falls._

_Mouse reached up to her neck and tugged at the metal collar still resting there. The inactive device came open easily in her hands, and she set it on the edge of the pipe behind her. She felt a strange lightness without the collar's weight at her throat; it seemed she had worn it so long that it had become almost a part of herself._

_Mouse realized with a start that she was free, finally free – and that if she wanted to stay that way, she better start running. She guessed it was probably close to midnight, and she had to put as much distance as possible between herself and Paradise Falls during the night. Surely by daybreak they would discover that she was missing._

_Irina had told her it would be safest to head east. Looking to the sky, Mouse saw the moon low on the horizon, sinking slowly toward its rest. Lifting her pack to her shoulders, the girl set off in the opposite direction as fast as her thin legs could carry her._

_--_

_Mouse grunted as she fell hard to the earth, tripping over a loose stone for the third time in as many hours. This time she wanted to stay down – her legs ached from running and she was bitterly cold, feeling every gust of wind through clothes still damp from crawling through the pipe – but the teen knew she had to take advantage of every second of darkness, so she struggled to her feet and continued on._

_Thankfully, she hadn't encountered a single living thing since she started her journey, though more than once she'd heard noises in the night that had caused her to put on a sudden burst of speed. Mouse had not been outside Paradise Falls since she was a little girl, but she still remembered the terrible creatures that inhabited the Wastes, and was not eager to meet any of them._

_Since the moon had set, Mouse had been running in near-total darkness, though there was little to see anyway in the desolate landscape through which she traveled. Her eyes had become so accustomed to the absence of light that she was temporarily dazzled when she crested a small rise and saw a ruined church a short distance ahead, lit from within by the orange-yellow glow of a campfire._

_Mouse stumbled down the ridge toward the chapel, her legs on autopilot, her exhausted mind not even pausing to consider whether those within might be friend or foe. The fire drew her like a beacon, promising warmth and comfort. The girl was perhaps a hundred feet from the ruin when a voice called out to her through the darkness. "Hey, who's there?"_

_Mouse stopped walking and looked up to see the shadowed outline of a man standing in a gap between two crumbling walls. His face was hidden in darkness, but the firelight streaming out from the building was enough to illuminate the rifle he held pointed straight at her._

_The girl swayed unsteadily on her feet; now that she had stopped moving, the exhaustion she'd been fighting suddenly hit her full force. "Please--" she began, and then she felt the world fall away as the ground rushed up to meet her._

_--_

"_Where'd you find her?"_

"_She just stumbled in from the dark and then collapsed."_

_Mouse dimly recognized the second voice as that of the man who had called out to her, speaking from very close by. She felt a sudden movement followed by a gentle bump and realized he'd set her down, next to the fire if the comforting warmth was any judge._

_She opened her eyes to see two men standing over her, but neither seemed to notice for the moment that she was awake, giving her a brief opportunity to study them. The man standing further from her was probably about thirty, with tanned skin and short, dark hair. His companion, whom Mouse guessed was the man she'd already encountered, was at least five years younger. His hair was ash brown and just long enough to be messy, in contrast to his neatly-trimmed goatee. The hunting rifle he'd pointed at her was now securely strapped to his back._

_As she watched them silently, the older man's eyes lit upon her, and a friendly smile crossed his face. Seeing his reaction, the other turned to her as well, but it seemed like the tanned man was the leader, for he spoke first._

"_How are you feeling?" the man asked softly, bending down close to her. His whole demeanor exuded calm even with the chaos of the Wasteland pressing in all around them; Mouse immediately decided that she liked this man._

"_I'm all right, just... worn out," she replied, surprised when her voice came out as a hoarse whisper._

"_What were you running from, kid?" This came from the younger man. Mouse felt time slow to a crawl as she tried to think up a believable story. She'd never been a very creative liar, but she was afraid to tell perfect strangers her situation. Though they seemed kind, out here trust was even more rare and valuable than clean water, and it was something that should never be blindly placed._

_As she lay momentarily lost in thought, the man beside her stretched out a sunbaked hand and brushed aside the stray hair at her neck, which must have come loose from her braid while she ran. Apparently he saw what he was looking for, because the expression in his eyes subtly changed, the tranquility that clung to him shifting just a little toward anger and sorrow. "You came from Paradise Falls." His voice was quiet, and his words were clearly not a question._

_Mouse reached self-consciously to her neck, knowing her expression had already given away the truth of his statement. Finally, risking a fearful glance at both men, she nodded ever so slightly, trying to swallow the lump that had suddenly formed in her throat._

"_Now you've gone and scared her, Crow," the younger man said, looking reproachfully at his partner before turning to the girl. "Don't worry, we won't turn you in."_

_Crow smiled warmly at her again, and Mouse swore she could feel his aura of calm all around her. "Your secret's safe with us." She returned the smile as the man stood up. "Now if you'll excuse me a moment, I have to go check the pack Brahmin. You should get some rest."_

_Mouse kept her eyes on his retreating form as he crossed the ruined chapel's floor, until the younger man's voice brought her gaze back to him. "It's okay, kid, you can sleep. I'll keep a lookout; it's what he pays me for anyway," he said, jerking a thumb toward his boss for emphasis. The teen smiled as the pieces came together in her mind: Crow was a caravan merchant, and the man who'd found her was his guard._

_Now that she was safe and lying close to the warmth of the fire, Mouse indeed felt herself growing sleepy. Her eyelids were feeling almost unbearably heavy when the caravan guard picked up her pack and started to look through it. Mouse opened her mouth to ask why he was rooting through her property, but decided she was too exhausted to care. After a moment, the young man pulled a well-worn but sturdy blanket out of the bag._

_"It looked like you could use this," he said, but as he spoke a metallic object fell out of the blanket's folds to land with a thud at his feet._

_Mouse's eyes snapped open as she stared at the pistol laying between them, glinting polished silver in the firelight. The caravan guard raised his eyebrows as he bent to pick it up, finding that there was a scrap of paper secured to the weapon with a length of rough twine wrapped around the grip. He eased the note from beneath the coils and read it briefly. "Guess you had someone looking out for you, kid," the man said, hazel eyes shining as he passed the thin fragment to her._

_Mouse held the yellowed scrap at an angle to better catch the penciled message in the flickering light. Pronto's atrocious handwriting was instantly recognizable, even if the actual words were not._

I really hope you don't have to use this.

_The girl smiled. "I guess someone _was_ looking out for me," she murmured, still clutching the note as sleep began to drag her under. Just before she shut her eyes, Mouse was vaguely aware of the caravan guard returning the pack to her side and then draping the blanket carefully over her._

---

The sun was just rising as Mouse awakened, illuminating the empty shell of the house where she had taken refuge the previous night. She lay disoriented for a moment, lost in her dream, before remembering that she wasn't lying beside a campfire in the ruined chapel, but rather was curled up in the corner of a bombed-out house just southeast of the Meresti trainyard.

Mouse shook her head as if to clear it. She hadn't dreamed of that particular episode from her past in a very long time, and the reminder wasn't entirely welcome. While rolling her blankets to stow them in her pack, she briefly wondered why that memory would bother her now, and decided that it must be because she was heading back to Big Town. After all, it had been the first place she'd visited after her escape from Paradise Falls.

Since then, Mouse had seen every inch of the eastern Capital Wasteland, from Rivet City all the way north to the Republic of Dave – and she had traveled further east than the Capital Wasteland proper, further than nearly anyone she'd met, to New Baltimore and beyond. At first, Mouse had never planned on coming back to the area. She meant to keep going until she reached the coast, but eventually she returned almost in spite of herself. These places were no more hospitable than any other corner of the ruined country, but there was a comforting familiarity to the Capital Wasteland that nowhere else possessed.

She turned to face the sun as a dawn breeze caressed her tanned face and lifted the small tendrils of hair that had come loose from her long braid during the night. Mouse frowned as her slender fingers tucked the stray bits back into place; having hair nearly the same shade as dry Wasteland grass was helpful from a camouflage standpoint, but that had never stopped her from wishing that she'd been born with a more attractive color.

Lifting her pack to her shoulders, Mouse stood and checked the two guns strapped to her hip, a habit picked up over years spent wandering the dangerous Wastes. A small smile crossed her face as her hand brushed over the snub-nosed pistol that she'd carried ever since that night almost ten years before. Satisfied that everything was in order, Mouse set off to the southwest. With any luck, she'd arrive within the hour.

--

Only an hour later, the run-down homes of Big Town came into view. Mouse would rather have spent the night in the settlement than out in the Wastes, but she had been unable to reach it before sunset and decided against traveling in the dark.

Apparently with good reason, for as she passed the first of the ruined houses on the outskirts of town, a bullet tore the air perhaps a foot to her right. Her hand moved to her gun on instinct even though her mind registered that she wasn't actually in any danger. "Dusty, what the _hell_?" she shouted, glaring at the man half-hidden behind a makeshift barricade.

The man stood, and even from a distance Mouse could see his sheepish expression behind the clear visor of his helmet. "Ah, damn... Mouse, it's you. I'm sorry."

Mouse couldn't help but laugh as she crossed the plank bridge into the settlement. "You've been going without sleep again, haven't you?"

Dusty sank back into his chair with a groan, still holding his rifle in a white-knuckled grip. "There hasn't been a whole lot of time for sleep lately. Between the slavers and the Super Mutants-"

"Slavers? They've been here?" The sentry could see Mouse grow pale beneath her deep suntan. They'd always been a touchy subject with her.

"Yeah, but the last couple weeks it's the mutants that have been giving us the problem. It's lucky you didn't run into them on your way here." He frowned, looking away quickly before bringing his gaze up to meet the wandering doctor's eyes. "They attacked again at dawn today... and they took Red with them."

"Shit." Mouse sat down heavily in the dirt beside his chair. Dusty knew the two were close, and that she would take the news hard. What he didn't expect was her next question. "How many were there, and which way did they go?"

Dusty's eyes widened behind the visor. "You're not seriously thinking of going over there yourself, are you?" He paused, but her determined gaze never wavered. "There were at least five of them, Mouse. Look, I know you've been out here a long time, but you're gonna get yourself killed if you go in there."

Mouse said nothing for a long moment, but stood up again, her deep brown eyes seeming to look at everything while seeing nothing. Dusty knew that expression well; it meant she was deep in thought.

Suddenly the sentry stood as well, noticing a figure walking steadily toward the town entrance. "Hey," Dusty called out, his voice tense. "Who are you, and what do you want here?"

The person stopped at the far end of the plank bridge. "I don't even know where 'here' is. I'm headed north, and I could use some supplies." The voice was definitely female, Mouse realized – a young woman, dressed in combat armor and a battered tan helmet.

"This is Big Town," Dusty answered, keeping his rifle pointed straight at the woman, "and we don't have much of anything here to trade."

"Look, I'm just passing through. I'm not going to hurt anyone."

Mouse put a hand on Dusty's arm and could feel him shaking from fatigue. She worried that the stranger was about to get the same welcome she'd received, but at this range, he might not miss. "I believe her, Dusty. Just let her in."

The sentry considered a moment, then nodded absently. "All right, come on. But don't cause any trouble." He sat down again, his attention returning to the woman still standing beside him. "Mouse, please don't go up there. I know Red is your friend, but these are Super Mutants we're talking about. They don't just hand their captives over without a fight."

The blond shook her head angrily. "Someone has to go, Dusty. We can't just leave her there-"

"I'll go."

Mouse whirled around to see the new arrival standing behind her. "What?"

"I said, I'll go." The woman's voice was calm, but there was a hint of exasperation in it, as though she were talking to a child.

"Why would you do that?" Mouse asked.

"Well... I assume there would be a reward, right? I'm kind of short on caps." The stranger had to look up to meet Mouse's stare, being slightly shorter, and Mouse was struck by the intense green of her eyes. Hearing the note of hesitation in her voice, Mouse began to wonder just how old this woman was.

Mouse shook her head. "Just another greedy Wastelander. I thought for a moment maybe someone actually wanted to help for a change."

The woman's eyes flashed. "I _do_ want to help. I just... I need the caps for something important, okay?"

Mouse inclined her head toward the hunting rifle strapped to the other's back. "Do you know how to use that? Have you ever faced a Super Mutant before?"

"Of course I know how to use it. And no, I haven't killed any mutants yet, but I did take out a whole camp of Raiders the other day. I can take care of myself." Reaching up, she took off the helmet, revealing a head heavy with rich brown hair cut short enough that it barely grazed her neck. Mouse wondered how her hair had remained so clean despite the relentless dust of the Wasteland; it gleamed like a buzzard's wing in the morning sunlight.

But without the helmet, it was obvious that this mysterious visitor was much younger than Mouse had first guessed, certainly still in her teens. The blond sighed. "Look, kid, I'm not going to send you to your death out there."

"Then I'll go with you." The woman – no, _girl_, Mouse corrected herself – was not going to back down, that was clear. She opened her mouth to respond, but stopped when she saw a familiar figure running towards them from the back of the town, dark hair flying out behind her.

"Mouse! Oh, I'm so glad you're here," the pale girl stopped in front of her, and Mouse realized she was holding a bloodstained rag in her hand.

"Bittercup, what's wrong?" The young doctor asked.

"I- I need you to come with me right away," Bittercup stammered. "It's Timebomb, he was hurt real bad this morning. Didn't Dusty tell you?" She shot an accusatory glance at the sentry, but he was too tired to notice.

Mouse made a noise of frustration in the back of her throat and turned to the brunette still standing behind her. "Well, it looks like I'm not going anywhere for a while. Do you really think you can handle the Super Mutants on your own?"

The young woman nodded and flashed a confident smile, revealing a row of surprisingly white teeth. "Leave it to me."

Mouse considered a moment; even though she was urgently needed in the clinic, she wasn't about to let this girl walk away unprepared. "How much ammo do you have for that rifle?"

"Well, counting what's in it now, probably twenty rounds left."

The blond shook her head. "That's not going to be enough." Reaching into a pouch at her waist, Mouse extracted two handfuls of bullets. "Those should bring you to forty or so. It's better to have more than you need than to be left weaponless in the middle of a fight. Speaking of which, what else do you have on you?"

"A .32 pistol and a knife," the woman answered.

Mouse reached around to the back of her belt and produced a sawnoff shotgun and a small bag of shells. "Take this, just in case. It won't be any help at range, but if they get in close, your rifle will be useless, and the .32 won't do much more than make them angry."

The brown-haired traveler smiled as she took the weapon. "Thank you. Your name is Mouse, right?" When the other nodded, she added, "My name is Paloma."

Returning the smile, Mouse said, "Now that we're on a first-name basis, Paloma, don't go getting yourself killed out there." She turned to leave before glancing back at the teen one more time. "You sure you can do this?"

"I'll do my best," Paloma answered.

"That's all I needed to hear," Mouse said. Watching from his exhausted daze, Dusty wondered at the small smile playing on her lips as the doctor turned to follow Bittercup toward the back of the settlement.

--

Once Mouse had gone, the sentry looked up to the brown-haired teen standing beside him. "The Super Mutants are based at the old Germantown Police Headquarters to the north. You should be able to reach it in an hour or so if you move quickly and don't run into any trouble along the way."

As he spoke, Paloma rolled up her sleeve, revealing a small device strapped to her left forearm. Fascinated, Dusty stood and moved behind her to get a better look. She seemed to be inputting his directions into the unit; a map of the Wasteland appeared on the glowing screen, with tiny squares marking a handful of places in the local area. Finally, the girl noticed his scrutiny and turned her head, green eyes dancing with amusement. "I guess you've never seen one of these before, huh?"

"You guessed right. What is it?" he asked.

"It's a Pip-Boy 3000. Everyone in the Vault gets one, but out here I usually keep it covered up. I was kinda tired of sticking out everywhere I went."

Dusty stared at the teen a long moment, as if seeing her now for the first time. "It's a good thing Mouse didn't see that thing. If she'd known you were from the Vault, there's no way she would've let you go alone."

Paloma laughed, a deep, rich sound. "How would she stop me?"

The sentry managed a smile, shaking his head. "I guess she couldn't, but... you have to understand, Mouse worries about everyone out here, probably more than she should. I guess it's what makes her such a good doctor. It's not that she doesn't trust you to look after yourself, but she's seen a lot of things out there, you know?"

The girl considered this, then nodded slightly. "Yeah, I get it." She paused, seemingly lost in thought. "Well, I'd better get moving. Hopefully I'll be back before dark."

Dusty tried unsuccessfully to stifle a yawn as he sat back into his chair. "Take care, kid."

"Sure." Paloma smiled as she turned and crossed the bridge out of town, her eyes fixed on the path leading north.

--

Following the flashing arrow on her Pip-Boy, Paloma rounded a corner to see a cracked stone slab engraved with the words "Germantown Police Headquarters." Looming behind the sign were the ruins of a two-story office building surrounded by a tall chain link fence topped by three strands of rusting barbed wire. Luckily, there was a section of fence missing just behind the sign, so Paloma cautiously crept through, rifle at the ready.

Just ahead was a door in the side of the building, but to the teen's dismay, it was locked – and a good lock, too, far too advanced for her to pick. She started to head toward the back of the structure, but the sound of heavy footfalls stopped her in her tracks. A glance at her Pip-Boy showed two red dots behind the building, most likely Super Mutants, so she decided to search elsewhere for an entrance.

The entire front of the building had been sheared off long ago, exposing the innards among a shower of fallen rubble and twisted rebar. On the second story, Paloma spotted a door that appeared intact. Fortunately for her, an interior staircase still stood, and the girl was able to pick her way along the edges of destroyed rooms until she reached her goal.

Paloma opened the door quickly, leaning against it with her hip so that she could keep both hands on her rifle. The ancient hinges creaked in protest, and the she cringed, hoping that wherever the mutants were, they hadn't heard. The hallway before her appeared empty, so she darted inside and allowed the door to close behind her.

After the bright glare of the Wasteland sun, the interior of the building was nearly pitch-black to her eyes. She pressed close against one of the crumbling plaster walls, waiting for her vision to adjust. The hallway was narrow, and lit only by tiny shafts of light coming in through cracks in the damaged ceiling. Off to her right, Paloma noted a single empty office, but beyond that the hallway continued for some distance before the next doorway. This layout made the brunette uncomfortable – if she got into a firefight with one of the mutants, she didn't like the possibility of being left without cover.

A muffled sound from somewhere up ahead made Paloma freeze in place: were those footsteps? She glanced down at her Pip-Boy and noticed two red dots on her compass that hadn't been there before. Since she had no idea of the headquarters' floor plan, Paloma decided it would be best to take out the mutants rather than try to avoid them; she didn't want the creatures to catch her unawares later on. The teen moved down the hall as quickly as she could while still keeping quiet, hoping she could sneak up on her adversaries. A stealth kill certainly would even the odds.

As she approached the door near the end of the hallway, Paloma could hear snatches of conversation: low, grumbling voices that echoed like distant thunder in the abandoned building. The words were hesitant, as though the speakers had only a limited grasp of the language, and she realized it was the mutants talking among themselves. Paloma paused to listen, for she hadn't known that Super Mutants could talk at all.

"We need to bring back more. These two are not enough."

"If you weren't always hungry, we would not need so many." The second voice would have been indistinguishable from the first if not for the hint of annoyance.

"Tonight we can go to the bleeders' town again, and take them all," the first voice countered. Startled into movement by that comment, Paloma began to inch forward, relying on a chest-high partition to shield her from view as she entered the room. The teen fingered a grenade hanging from her belt – it would be so easy to toss over the low wall – but reconsidered, deciding that the noise would surely alert every other mutant in the building to her presence.

"Yes, but first we will have fresh meat." Paloma froze, wondering if they had heard her, but the mutant continued. "The male was taken down to the kitchen." A look of puzzlement crossed the girl's face. No one had told her about a second captive, but from the sounds of it, his days were numbered.

Paloma decided it was now or never; she needed to confront the mutants before they finished their conversation, for they would see her if they tried to leave the room. Peering cautiously over the partition, she did not pause to stare at the giants standing no more than ten feet away, simply aimed at the back of the nearest mutant's head and fired.

The gunshot was deafening in the small room, but before the sound had died away Paloma already had the second mutant in her sights thanks to her Pip-Boy's targeting system. She noted with satisfaction the shock on the creature's face as she pulled the trigger. The mutant howled in pain and clapped one hand to its bleeding cheek.

Then time seemed to resume its normal pace, and something happened that Paloma did not expect – both mutants drew their own rifles and began returning fire. A human opponent would certainly have been felled by a headshot at such close range, but obviously the Super Mutants were far more resilient than humans. Paloma peeked over the barrier again and targeted one of the creatures, but it hardly seemed to notice as her bullet struck its arm.

Paloma ducked behind the partition, cursing under her breath, and decided it was time to use the emergency pick-me-up she'd received before leaving Megaton. Grabbing the triple-barreled syringe off her belt, she jabbed the needle into her arm in one swift motion, gasping as liquid fire seemed to course through her veins. Paloma was immediately filled with an indescribable rage, a surge of raw power so strong that she could feel it singing in her blood, begging for release.

Now _that_ was what she needed.

One of the mutants suddenly came around the partition, taking advantage of the pause in the action to challenge Paloma directly. The brunette glared up at the creature as she raised her rifle, her gaze almost feral in its intensity. A wicked smile twisted her lips as she pulled the trigger, planting a bullet perfectly between the mutant's eyes. It froze in place for half a second before falling backward to hit the nearby wall with a resounding thud.

Paloma looked over the low barrier and used her Pip-Boy to target the remaining mutant's face. She fired three shots in rapid succession, and on the third the creature's head exploded outward in a shower of blood and bone, splattering the dirty wall behind it as the lifeless body crumpled to the ground.

Paloma glanced down at her wrist to confirm that there were no more threats in the area before standing up. She simply stood for a moment, breathing heavily, her whole body trembling with the force of the bloodlust that still ran through her. Having spent her life in the sheltered environment of the Vault, she'd had no idea that chems could be this powerful.

After half a minute, Paloma shook herself out of her reverie and moved to check the bodies of the fallen mutants. It wasn't until she was nearly beside them that she realized just how _huge_ they were – almost eight feet tall and powerfully muscled, their skin the sickly green of brackish water in the faint sunlight streaming through the filthy windows. Certainly, these were the strongest adversaries the young Vault-dweller had yet faced. She pocketed a handful of .32 rounds from each of the bodies before continuing on her way; with any luck, she could take out the rest of the mutants before the chems wore off.

--

The first story of the ruined building was even darker than the second, Paloma reflected as she descended the stairs. Her musings were interrupted when a sudden high-pitched beeping made her freeze in her tracks. Acting on instinct, the girl leapt forward, her hand making contact with the disarm switch just in time to prevent the frag mine from detonating. Breathing a sigh of relief, she stowed the now deactivated mine in her backpack before heading into the main corridor of the first floor.

Straight ahead lay a room crowded with desks bearing computer terminals, but what most attracted Paloma's attention was a faint scrabbling sound, the characteristic noise of radroaches scuttling across the tiled floor. Shifting her rifle to her left hand, the teen drew her combat knife from a sheath on her thigh. Though she'd much rather shoot the giant bugs from a distance, she could neither afford to waste ammo nor attract unwanted attention with the noise of gunfire.

Paloma made quick work of the radroaches, plunging her knife into the unarmored junction between head and body. Wiping the sticky yellow bug juice onto her pants, the girl returned the knife to its proper place and peered out of the room into the hallway beyond. Not twenty feet away, a Super Mutant stood with its back to her, watching the halls for any sign of trouble.

Paloma couldn't suppress the grin spreading over her face. This would be far too easy. Relying on her still-heightened combat reflexes, she precisely targeted the back of the mutant's head, the same soft juncture she had exploited to kill the radroaches. The bullet caught the creature unawares, hurling its body forward, dead before it hit the ground.

Suddenly, a terrible roar sounded in the hallway behind her, and Paloma whirled around. The brute charging at her was large even by Super Mutant standards, and unlike the others was protected by crude armor of hammered scrap metal. In one giant hand the creature held a submachine gun, and as it closed the distance between them the weapon's barrel erupted in flashes of golden fire. Even as Paloma brought her rifle up to target the mutant, she felt a sharp lance of pain in her right arm, and the stock of the gun fell from her grasp.

Paloma staggered backward toward the room she had recently cleared, hoping to find cover, but tripped over loose debris and fell hard to the floor. She still gripped the rifle's barrel tightly with her left hand, but realized the weapon would be impossible to aim with only one functioning arm. Worse still, the creature was growing ever closer, its hideous face contorted in grotesque parody of a smile. It suddenly occurred to the girl that the mutant was toying with her – like a cat with a wounded mouse, the brute was hesitating solely to savor the kill a little longer.

And a split second behind that thought came the realization that she was very likely going to die.

* * *

_Just a few notes..._

_First, I imagine some of you will question why a Paradise Falls slaver is helping a slave escape. Please just trust me for a few chapters before passing judgement; Pronto and Mouse have a long history, and some of that will be explained in later flashbacks. He certainly wouldn't take a risk like that for anyone else __except Mouse._

_Second, the line "Now that we're on a first-name basis, don't go getting yourself killed out there" is a paraphrase of what Axel says during his first meeting with Sora in Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories. Just my way of giving a shout out to the fandom that got me writing fan fiction in the first place._

_Some of you probably figured out which chem Paloma used in this chapter... the rest will have to wait for the next installment, when all will be revealed. ;)_

_Finally, just to note that this won't be Lone Wanderer-centric by any stretch. Paloma is a character in the story, but she isn't intended to be the main focus, nor will things always follow the exact plot of the game._


End file.
